Pitched percussion instruments (e.g., drums such as a snare drum and a bass drum) need to be properly tuned. The drums are made of a hollow cylindrical barrel, typically composed of multiple different wood species, with a “batter” head (i.e., the head that the drum stick strikes to produce sound) being placed on the top side of the barrel and secured thereto using a metal or wood hoop, and a resonant head placed on the bottom of the barrel, being secured thereto using another hoop. The hoops are secured to the barrel using a plurality of tension rods (usually at least six and sometimes more than twelve rods) that are threadably connected to mountings on the barrel. The tension rods usually terminate in a square-shaped head (a “lug”) that may be rotated using a tuning key that may have an opening that matches the cross-sectional shape of the tuning screw head. In general each of the batter head and the resonant head are tuned by adjusting the tension in each of the tension rods in a meticulous process.
The process starts with the bottom head—the resonant head, which is often clear, as opposed to the top (batter) head which is often coated with a white thick textured coating.
Each of the tensioning rods of the resonant head are successively finger tightened to begin with very even tension on each of the lugs.
After the initial finger tightening, the person tuning the drum will “break in” the head, if new, by depressing the head with both fists across the surface of the head, which makes the head sit better.
Next, each lug is again successively retightened by hand, as breaking in the head may have resulted in it loosening proximate to at least some of the tensions rods.
Then palm pressure is applied using one hand on the hoop at each of the lug locations, one at a time, and the lugs are again finger tightened while the pressure is applied, with the use of the same amount of pressure at each lug location. Use of the pressure also serves to better seat the head, and gets the drum close to the desired pitch. This hand tightening while pressure is applied creates very even tension, probably even better than may initially be obtained using a drum key, because there is less of a sense of feel using the key, which may tend to apply disparate amounts of torque depending upon where the user grasps the head (“bow”) of the key with his/her thumb and forefinger. Grasping the head of the key even slightly differently using only those two fingers may produce different lever arms, resulting in a disparate amount of tension in each of the lugs. Also, overtightening may stretch the head and subsequently make it very difficult to tune properly.
Next, the batter head is tightened according to each of the above steps that were used for the resonant head.
Then, the key is used to tighten each one of the lugs of the resonant head first, in a star pattern, successively tightening the pairs of lugs that are opposite each other. Each one is successively tightened one-half of a turn of the key (i.e., rotation of 180 degrees of the key), which generally provides for the same amount of additional tension for each lug location. Then the key is used again to tighten each lug in the same star pattern, but this time only one-quarter of a turn (i.e., 90 degrees of rotation).
Next the tuning at each lug location is checked by successively tapping on the head in proximity to each of the lugs using a finger (e.g., a fore finger). The sounds produced at each of the locations may be compared to see if the pitch is close. A location that is either low or high may respectively be adjusted by a slight turn of the key for added or reduced tensioning of the particular lug.
The batter head may then be tightened using the key using the same steps that were used for the resonant head, but initially using one-quarter of a turn (90 degrees).
A few different methods can be used for the final tuning of the drum. It is desirable to tune for the responsiveness of the head, and also to tune for the relationship between the different drums used (e.g., the toms may be related by thirds in pitch).
The resonant head and the batter head may also be tuned to the same pitch or may be tuned to be related in pitch (e.g., related by thirds). The related tuning of the batter head and resonant head depends on the number of plies of each head, for example, where the batter head is a two-ply head and the resonant head is a one-ply head (i.e., thinner), the bottom head will naturally be higher in pitch when at the same tension.
To fine tune the batter head for any of those approaches, the resonant head is held with a first hand to keep it from resonating to get a good clear tone from the batter head, which first hand may also be grasping the key. Then a drum stick held in the second hand is used to successively tap on the batter head proximate to each lug location. Any of the lug locations that may be low or high with respect to a musical note to which the head is being tuned are then adjusted using the key held in the first hand, which first hand may repeatedly go back and forth between the holding the resonant head and the making of small adjustments to the tension of the lugs that may be slightly off. This back and forth motion for fine tuning of each of the drums is slow and laborious. Also, because the head of the drum key is generally finger sized, it is often difficult to tell whether or not it has been turned close to the prescribed 180 degrees or to the prescribed 90 degrees, when required prior to the fine tuning steps, which may cause tone discrepancies.
The present invention solves these and other problems.